Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series

by Terry Mancour

  “Who are you working for?” demanded Jenerard.

  “Well, while we are, at the moment, involved in errantry on behalf of our Order, our mandate actually comes from higher up. We are acting on the direct orders of the lawful liege of Alshar, Duke Anguin II,” Rondal informed him, evenly.

  “Yes,” Tyndal added. “You are all under arrest.”

  That brought a chorus of laughter from the crowd – even the laconic Lord Whiskers smiled.

  “The Orphan Duke?” scoffed Jenerard. “He’s squatting in that miserable hovel in Vorone, surrounded by idiot Wilderlords!”

  “As a couple of idiot Wilderlords,” Tyndal said, evenly, “I assure you that His Grace takes an active interest in the southern part of his realm. Enough to send two of his best agents into the thick of danger without concern.”

  “Brave words,” the Spider said, shaking his head. “But useless. As you are ‘new’, allow me to explain something to you gallant gentlemen: Anguin holds no sway in the south, and even if he ruled with an iron fist we are not inclined to respect his edicts . . . that’s why we’re criminals,” he said, offering the first smile his lips had chanced all night. “We disobey the law.”

  “Oh, we understand that implicitly,” agreed Tyndal. “Indeed, that was why His Grace has given us a warrant to destroy every Brotherhood Crew in his realm. Every last one. Every . . . last . . . rat.”

  The pronouncement fell like a stone in the midst of the room. Everyone knew how entrenched the Brotherhood was in the society of Enultramar, and how extensive their operations were. They had existed for centuries with the tacit approval of the court, even serving the interests of Alshar from time to time. You couldn’t just . . . get rid of the Brotherhood, seemed to be the sentiment.

  Yet that was just what Tyndal had declared.

  “His Grace finds the death of his mother suspicious,” Rondal continued to explain to the Rats. “Since you, yourself, were proximate to that assassination, Lord Jenerard, His Grace is highly anxious to question you about it, your relationship to his dame, and the rest of your dealings in court, at his earliest convenience.”

  Jenerard scoffed. “That is not going to happen,” he chuckled. “You are captured. You are surrounded. And soon you will be screaming in pain and begging for death’s embrace.”

  Tyndal barked a laugh that undercut the man’s assurance. “Are you kidding?” he snorted. “We went to a great deal of trouble – not to mention spending ten thousand ounces of gold – to be in this very place, amongst these very people. Did you really think that we didn’t anticipate capture?” he taunted.

  “Indeed,” Rondal agreed, with satisfaction. “If Prikiven hadn’t revealed us, we would have found another means to do so. We had to waste some time, you see.”

  “Waste time?” asked the Spider, troubled. “Why?”

  “Until everything was in place. Which I think it is,” he said, looking at the two big, muscular Rats who were still holding his upper arms. “You ready, Haystack?”

  “Like a destrier in the lists,” he agreed.

  “Then I will ask you this, just once, gentlemen, and in all seriousness: lay down your arms and surrender in the name of His Grace, Anguin II, or the consequences will be dire!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A Battle In Brisomar

  Of all of the magi who inhabit the Great Bay, especial consideration should be given before challenging the powers of the witches who inhabit the eastern swamps in Caramas, around the great and murky Lake Koshmar. The home to nearly a dozen tribes, the witches who have developed their powers in conjunction with the energies of the swamp are notoriously unreliable and untrustworthy, more apt to betray you for their own gain or for some mad purpose they alone understand; when the witches emerge from the swamps, great care should be taken lest you anger them, for they are powerful, if crude in their Art.

  Letter from the Third Count of Falas to his son

  No one surrendered. Nor did it appear that they were considering the matter seriously.

  With a whispered word, Rondal produced his mageblade in his palm and whirled to slash at the neck of a man on his left. He obligingly fell, clutching his spurting wound, while the other guard tried to control the mage. Rondal threw him over his hip in a move he’d learned at Relan Cor, and then dispatched him with a quick thrust of the blade.

  Tyndal had likewise manifested his mageblade and was standing over the corpses of his captors, his sword wet with their blood. The others in the room had quickly backed away from the sudden explosion of violence . . . all but a few.

  “Get them!” ordered Jenerard in a scream, and suddenly all was chaos.

  Rondal did his best to sort those who were trying to do him harm from those who merely wanted to flee the fray, and he did a reasonable job of avoiding civilian casualties as a result. The problem was that there were an awful lot of their enemies, all gathered in one place, and that made telling his foes apart complicated.

  The two Censors were the first to respond to the call to arms, drawing their own mageblades and moving to attack. Rondal found himself facing two warmagi in the hated cloaks, each armed with a witchstone and each with years of experience.

  This was Tyndal’s fantasy fight, not his, he realized, resenting his partner for no better reason. He spent a few desperate moments merely defending himself as the relentless Censors bore down on him.

  He was barely aware of the duel Tyndal found himself in, with Rellin Pratt, who had volunteered to end his rival. The young pirate had become enraged at the sight of his old foe and drew his scimitar at once. Though unaugmented by irionite, he was still a shadowmage, which kept Tyndal on his toes as they dueled.

  Rondal wasn’t worried. Tyndal had practiced his swordplay incessantly since he’d last faced Kaffin of Gyre, as Pratt had styled himself, then. He was far more prepared for this duel – indeed, he was relishing every stroke, Rondal saw when his partner’s fight crossed his field of vision.

  Meanwhile, Rondal was doing his best just to keep from getting killed. Facing two opponents at once was always tricky, and he didn’t have the advantage of Tyndal’s longer blade. He would parry one blow and barely have time to dodge the next. Worse, his foes kept using warmagic augmentations to give themselves quick and unexpected bursts of speed, throwing off the rhythm of the contest.

  It was an annoying challenge, but one which Rondal faced with meticulous determination. As one blade flashed toward his face, he had to be aware of where the other was positioned, and which direction it would likely take to block it. Several difficult moments made him begin to sweat as he tried to keep the Censors at bay while ensuring no one else snuck up behind him. The Brotherhood was not known for its chivalrous approach to combat. And he was unarmored.

  What are the Rats doing? he asked Iyugi, mind-to-mind. The footwizard was standing with his back to the wall of the tower, watching the dueling with interest. Gareth stood next to him, avoiding being crushed by the number of non-combatants eager to flee the dangerous fight, feigning terror at the sudden appearance of his vengeful pursuers. The emotion was not inauthentic – Gareth did not have a temperament suited to combat.

  Jenerard is watching and ordering more men into the fight, he reported. The Spider flees. He has the box, he added.

  Then it is time to change the tune to this dance, Rondal suggested.

  Those three Rats behind you are about to cut in, Iyugi warned, calmly. I’ll tell Gareth.

  One of the Censors began to hang back, while his fellow pressed an aggressive attack – he’s going to cast a spell, Rondal realized. The Censorate warmagi might not have the experience with irionite he did, but it didn’t take much to learn how to be very destructive with the stuff.

  He tossed his blade from one hand to the other and summoned Bulwark. As soon as the baculus manifested, he began ordering it to take action. With the obedience of a well-trained hunting dog it began singling out combatants and dealing with them, magically.

  Just to provid
e a distraction, after he blocked his opponent’s string of blows he responded by using a concussion blast from his blade to knock the man back on his heels . . . and into his comrade, ruining the spell he was preparing.

  The boom of the spell and the lack of an opponent allowed him the briefest of moments to glance around the room. It was now half-empty, as the spectators fled downstairs away from the fight, but quickly filling up with more Rats from below. Half a dozen rushed in with clubs and swords, ready to throw themselves into the fray . . . yet were hesitant to attack warmagi. Instead they hung back while the two knights fought, waiting for an opportune moment to use their numbers to alter the course of the battle.

  Thankfully, they’d prepared for that contingency. Gareth managed to pull something out of his belt, whisper a few words . . . and summoned two hat racks.

  At least, they looked like free-standing hat racks when they appeared. But at Gareth’s command they unfolded like elegant insects, each standing on three sturdy weirwood legs shod in iron points, and extending three supple, double-jointed arms from their midsections. Each arm terminated with a wicked-looking curved steel blade as sharp as a barber’s scalpel, and had jagged bits of iron embedded along its length to both defend and attack with. As they came to life tiny red magelights formed above them, like single baleful eyes, bathing them in a macabre glow.

  “Attack!” Gareth screamed at his constructs, and as he directed them the two magical creations began stabbing at the backs of the surprised Rats, who had little idea and no training about how to defend themselves against animate furniture.

  Gareth might be a crappy failure as a warmage, Rondal reflected, but he was a damn good enchanter.

  Rellin Pratt apparently saw the change in circumstance out of the corner of his eye, and glared at Tyndal as they fought.

  “This was a set-up from the beginning!” he realized, angrily.

  “A trap, actually!” he heard Tyndal grunt as he tried another attack at the shadowmage. “What was the best way to get all of the highest-level Rats in one place? Give them a piece of cheese that they couldn’t resist!”

  “You risked your witchstones for that?” the pirate called, furiously beating back Tyndal’s advance.

  “Our old ones, yes,” Tyndal grinned as he tried his best to kill his former classmate. “We replaced those old things ages ago with the special ones that Minalan got from the Alka Alon at the coronation. Much more powerful,” he said. To emphasize his point he lobbed a raw handful of magical energy at the shadowmage from his off hand as he pressed his attack with his blade. It cascaded off of some defense the shadowmage had in place, but it was a display of power that confirmed his boast.

  Rondal had troubles of his own, else he would have joined Tyndal to put their foe down for good. Jenerard had drawn a blade from one of his fallen guards and was advancing upon him, a grim look in his eye. The man might be old, a little out of shape, and perhaps out of practice, Rondal realized, but he’d also fought his way through the ranks of the Brotherhood while maintaining his identity as a senior peer. That meant a pile of bodies as high as a mountain. The Brotherhood’s Pilot was not without skills, Rondal understood.

  From the first cross of their blades, Rondal began to see just how Jenerard’s shape and form hid a gifted swordsman. The Sea Lord’s scimitar was heavier than his mageblade, and the Rat seemed able to beat his blade out of the air with impunity. But the heaviness of the blade also reduced his ability to recover, Rondal noted.

  Rondal turned instead to Bulwark, and had the rod shoot bursts of light in the Rat’s direction from his right hand while the sword in his left kept him busy. The ploy served to stall the big man for a moment, but little more.

  “Get more men up here!” he called, desperately, as he took a breath and drew his Rat’s Tail from behind his back with his left hand.

  “How about a girl?” came a voice Rondal was really not expecting.

  Gatina suddenly appeared from where she’d been lurking, Rondal saw, her blade naked in her hand. She was without disguise, her white hair and lavender eyes in stark contrast to the dark-haired folk in the room.

  Jenerard’s eyes narrowed as he turned to his flank to face the new threat. He made a tentative slash which she parried with precision. “Salaines! I should have guessed you shadow-loving roaches would be involved in this!”

  “This is your last chance, Lord Jenerard,” demanded Rondal, heaving for breath after his fight. “Drop your sword and surrender to the Duke, and he may spare your life.”

  “We didn’t kill the damn duchess!” he declared, angrily. “I was going to use her position, not eliminate her!”

  “I’m certain His Grace will be eager to hear your entire tale,” he said, as Tyndal and Pratt continued to duel behind them. “But for now you have lost.”

  “There is no way I would lose to mere children!” he spat, and rushed Rondal again.

  While he was ready for the sudden advance, he wasn’t nearly as quick as Gatina, the Kitten of Night. The girl spun into position with acrobatic precision, knocking her oversized opponent’s heavy blade effortlessly out of the way as she stepped under it, her slender sword unerringly thrust into Jenerard’s left shoulder. He emitted a painful groan as the Rat’s Tail went slack in his hand.

  As fast as lightning, the daring little thief reached out a dainty hand, bearing the ring Rondal gave her . . . and Jenerard’s scimitar disappeared as well.

  That didn’t stop the leader of the Brotherhood. With an angry snarl the big man kicked at the girl who was confounding his attempts to stop her with his one good arm. Instead Gatina used his extended leg as a ladder, stepping on his knee for a split-second . . . but long enough for her to be able to deliver a slashing cut across the man’s face with her blade.

  Rondal realized that she could have taken Jenerard’s head, if she’d wished, but she’d wisely shown restraint. There was still much that he could tell them, Rondal knew. Having him alive and in captivity would be preferable to having him dead.

  Gatina finished her daring move by kicking the Rat in the face, sending him sprawling and screaming. She landed with the grace of the feline she was named for.

  As much as Rondal wanted to admire her artistry, there were more pressing issues at hand. While the whirling magical constructs held the top of the stairs, preventing additional reinforcements, there were still a fair number of Rats running around the tower. True, they were wary of approaching him – and his new ally – but neither did they look as if they were ready to allow them to escape.

  There was one spectator who neither fled in terror nor seemed angry at the fighting. The tall gaunt man stood alone amongst the chaos, observing with interest.

  “My lord?” Rondal asked, his blade half-raised. “Are you attempting to surrender?”

  “Prikiven told me that this would be amusing and instructive,” the gaunt man said in a deep, unearthly voice. “I see the little fool was not mistaken, for once.”

  “As pleased as I am to have entertained you, my lord, I am perplexed at your demeanor. You neither run nor fight, but merely observe.”

  “Why would I do either, when I can watch animals fight over trinkets?” the gaunt man snorted. Rondal noted that some spell that concealed his face was falling away, revealing a malefic glow from his eyes. “

  There were others watching, too, he saw . . . including Lord Whiskers, who had drawn his thin blade but had not attacked. The angry-looking lizard on his shoulder hissed defiantly enough so that none approached him. But the gaunt man in the long dark robe seemed apart from it all.

  “Your perspective intrigues me,” Rondal said, sending a guard to sleep with a flick of his mageblade. “May I ask who you represent, my lord?”

  “I am Ocajon, Herald of Korbal,” he revealed, a sneer in his voice. “More than a thousand years ago I walked this vale before it was blemished with the vermin of your race. I look forward to the day where it is again unsullied.”

  “You are the lackey of Korbal
the Demon God?” asked Rondal, as the hair on his arms stood on end.

  “Peace,” the creature said, revealing its tattooed flesh as it removed its cowl. “I am not here to fight – there are others better suited than that. I come merely to observe, and prepare the way.”

  “And for what are you preparing, Ocajon, Herald of Korbal?” Rondal asked, warily.

  “The extinction of your race, after its enslavement,” Ocajon informed him, as the battle whirled around them. Gatina was dueling three guards at once now, while Tyndal was lobbing bolts at Rellin as he chased the pirate lord around the tower. None of it seemed to affect Ocajon. “You have provided a delightful laboratory in this once-pristine valley with which to experiment,” he said, as if he was complimenting Rondal on his gardens. “Soon Korbal will rule it all, once again, from Olum Seheri.”

  “Alshar has a ruler,” Rondal said, raising his blade. “His name is Anguin, Duke by right over all Alshar, from the Bay to the Wilderlands!”

  “Fools!” sneered Ocajon contemptuously. “You can no more claim the land you’ve infested than the insects in the bark of a tree could claim its ownership! You are a weak and pathetic race, whose best value lies in your servitude and your conquest. Let the gurvani have their hills . . . the Enshadowed will restore this valley to its glory over the bones of all its humani!”

  “Then you have yet to learn about the strength of my race, Ocajon,” Rondal said, boldly, though he could feel his knees weaken in the face of the creature’s obvious power.

  “I live in a cloak of your disgusting flesh,” the creature retorted, opening his cloak and displaying flesh that was clearly dead underneath, animated by some dark arcane force. “I devoured my host’s one disgusting bite at a time. I know things about your loathsome species you cannot begin to imagine!”

  “Then you understand that we aren’t inclined to face extinction without a fight!” Rondal shot back, narrowly dodging a blow meant for his girlfriend. Gatina ducked under it and drove Kitten’s Paws up through the man’s chin and into his brain, before whirling and using her twitching foe to block another attack.